Crowd in Abengourou, Ivory Coast

There are one billion inhabitants in Africa. This represents almost 15 percent of humanity. This colorful crowd showing its enthusiasm by waving at the photographer was immortalized in Abengourou in the southeast of the Ivory Coast. The crowd is made up of children and teenagers and is a reminder that the country is young since, like the rest of the African continent, more than 40 percent of the population is less than fifteen years old. The country also had an estimated total fertility rate of 4,4 children per woman in 2010. This is representative of the continent’s average (the world average is 2,5 children per woman). The modernization and evolution of cultural and socioeconomic preoccupations has caused a gradual decrease in fertility but it will still take several decades to stabilize Africa’s demography. Also, the AIDS epidemic currently running rife in the Sub-Saharan area (where 67 percent of the 33 million infected people in the world live) and the ravages of malaria will have serious repercussions on the region’s demography. Every day in Africa, the AIDS virus kills 5.000 people and infects 5.000 more.